TITLE: AAC-USER THERAPIST INTERACTIONS: PRELIMINARY LINGUISTIC
OBSERVATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR COMPANSION
AUTHORS: Kathleen F. McCoy, Wendy M. McKnitt, Denise M. Peischl,
Christopher A. Pennington, Peter B. Vanderheyden,
and Patrick W. Demasco
COMMENTS: (c) 1994 RESNA Press. Reprinted with permission.
ABSTRACT:
Intelligent AAC Systems attempt to provide a communication system that
can interpret input from the user in much the same way a familiar
listener would. The COMPANSION system is a research demonstration
prototype which "interprets" compressed input given by a user of a
word based system into a full grammatical sentence. In developing a
usable system from the prototype the needs of the user must be
specified in well-defined ways.
This paper reports some preliminary observations from an experiment in
which word board users interact with their therapist to tell a story
from a picture book. The analysis compares the therapist's output with
what could be achieved by a system like COMPANSION and discusses the
necessary functionality for a second generation prototype as well as
some of the potential difficulties that will be faced.